Some Latter-day Saints
mistakenly believe that the “Calling and Election Made Sure” is something that occurs
through a Second Comforter experience, a visitation by Jesus Christ. However,
that isn’t according to the Prophet Joseph Smith’s teachings. Besides his
comments that the Calling and Election Made Sure was done by the “Power of Elijah”
and through an “Anointing and Sealing”, in one of the Prophet’s own speeches on
the Second Comforter, he explicitly states that the Second Comforter is
something that occurs after a person has their Calling and Election
Made sure.
Though Jesus Christ
can and will appear to whomever he sees fit, the Prophet taught that it was
after an individual’s “Calling and Election” is “Made Sure”, that it was proper
for individuals who continue to hunger and thirst after righteousness to have a
“Second Comforter” experience:
“There are two Comforters
spoken of. One is the Holy Ghost, the same as given on the day of Pentecost,
and that all Saints receive after faith, repentance, and baptism . . . The
other Comforter spoken of is a subject of great interest, and perhaps
understood by few of this generation. After a person has faith in Christ,
repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives
the Holy Ghost (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then
let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after
righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will
soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly
prove him, and finds that man is determined to serve him at all hazards,
then the man will find his calling and election made sure [though receiving
their Second Anointing through the legitimate channel of the Priesthood] then
it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which
the Lord hath promised the saints, as is recorded in the Testimony of St. John,
in the 14th chapter, from the 12th to 27th verses . . . Now
what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ
himself and that is the sum and substance of the whole matter; that when any
man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to
attend him or appear unto him from time to time” (Teachings of the Prophet
Joseph Smith <27 June 1839> pages 14-150)
It is at this time
(during or after receiving the Second Comforter) that a person may be ordained
from God and one mortal cannot receive from another mortal. (Jacob Vidrine, “The
Nauvoo Priesthood Developments: The Priesthood of Elijah and The Order of the
Messiah,” One Eternal Round: A Magazine Dedicated to Mormon History and Theology,
issue 1 [15 June 2019]:18-20)
